If you can not stand the heat
by Talbain 43
Summary: The aftermath of a not-so-typical friday, which took a turn for the weird after Dr. Drakken agreed to do Shego a small favor.


**Disclaimer**: I don´t own any of these characters.

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What had still been a fully functional lair in the early evening hours, was about three hours later reduced to a smouldering heap of rubble and deformed, half-molten steel beams. Small fires were still flickering here and there, bathing the surrounding area in an eerie light.

In front of the ruin stood two figures staring at it in silence. Much like the lair the blue man and the green woman had seen better days; their clothes singed and torn up, their hair a frightful mess and their faces covered with soot.

"You know" Shego said flatly while straightening her black hair. "you´d think they would make the time share lair fireproof. I mean, they rent it to mad scientists. Who thought it would catch fire so quickly?"

Upon looking at Dr. Drakken it was quite obvious the destroyed lair wasn´t the only thing fuming. Yet he bit his lip, closed his eyes for a moment and rallied impressively. She had expected him to literally explode but this time it seemed like he managed control himself despite what had happened. Normally he only did that when dealing with his mother.

He looked at her with a rather forced smile on his face.

"Shego..." she heard him say with equally forced politeness. "You might not believe it, but let me tell you, _everything_ will start to burn or melt, when the temperature is high enough. Now, if you´d be so kind to recall the events of the last hour, I´m sure it will come to you, that things got _quite_ hot in there!"

"Hmm...you´re right. Shame, really! We were so close to actually doing it this time."

"Cl-close? We were not even half-way through with the preparations!"

While the unnatural smile was still bolted onto his face, his voice had gained in volume and lost a lot of its friendliness. By now Drakken was no longer looking at the rubble but instead he had turned around to face Shego.

No matter if it was fake or real, the air of excitement surrounding her did not really help him to keep his composure.

"But we got much further down the list than the last three times!"

Was his imagination playing tricks on him now or did she just really sound giddy?

"I think, I´m getting the hang of it! C´mon, Dr. D!" She grabbed his arm and started dragging him towards the hovercraft. "Let´s do it again! If we start right now, we can be at the Middleton lair in an hour or so!"

For her to display such enthusiasm without a moodulator chip on her neck was new and it left him with a dumbfounded look on his face while being tagged along like that day when she dragged him through the park.

"C´mon! Hurry up! It´ll be fun!"

For a brief moment Drakken might have considered that it was real, but with the way she said those last words and with that sparkle in her eyes, usually only there to be found when she had fun at his expense, even he got it. She was -once again- pulling his leg.

Shego felt him resist her with all his might and before she could do something about it he had already shaken her hand of his arm with an abrupt motion. As she looked at him, the scowl on his face and how he looked back at her, made it obvious, that this time his temper would get the better of him.

"THAT´S IT! ENOUGH!" He yelled. "The first times I thought it might just be coincidence, but...but this...!"

He gestured wildly in the direction of the smoking remains of the time share lair.

"This is sabotage! Nothing else than sabotage! There simply is no other explanation! If you were not into it, then why have you accepted to do it in the first place?"

"Woah, Doc! I told you the very second we arrived at the time share lair: The control panel here looked totally different than the ones we have at our own lairs. So it´s not my fault the thing went 'poof'"

"Poof?"

For a moment all his anger seemed to be replaced by complete and utter surprise. His right eye was twitching nervously though.

"Sh-Shego...it was an oven. A normal oven. A simple kitchen appliance. Like the three other ones in our own lairs...just looking a tad different. You just had to turn it on to let it preheat. It´s not rocket science!"

Shego crossed her arms in front of her chest and shot him a dismissive glance.

"Well, I said right at the start: I don´t do cooking!"

"But...but...but you started the whole thing! The whole lunch break you were talking about nothing else than you not being able to use anything else than the microwave!"

"Who was the one, who said, cooking is soooo easy? Wasn´t that the same person, who said, he´ll teach me how to cook a meal before the afternoon is over? The very same, who bet he could do it without breaking a sweat? Hm...the name escapes me...give me a moment, I´m sure I´ll remember any second now."

His grumbling brought a smirk on her face and she turned around just in time to watch him falter.

"Aaargh! Fine, fine...whatever! I give up!"

Despite the words he just spoke, his mind was still racing.

Why did this happen? Why had he ever said 'yes' to showing her how too cook? And why had she even initiated the whole thing in the first place, when she was now acting as if she was never really interested?

This was just more evidence for him that he would never really figure her out. He should have known right from the start the only possible outcome for the whole thing was a disaster. Now three of his own lairs had ruined kitchens and he could kiss goodbye to the security deposit for the time share lair.

In the end it was the feeling of a warm delicate hand resting on his shoulder, which let his mind rest. Turning his head around he found Shego standing next to him, giving him the rare pleasure to see her showing a genuine smile instead of her usual smirk.

"Well, it wasn´t that bad, now was it, Dr. D? You could even say it was fun. Well....some of it atleast. Not to mention it made time fly on an otherwise boring day. Right?"

"Yes...if you look at it that way, you are right."

"Thought you´d see things my way. Now what do you think about calling it a day, Doc? It´s getting kinda late." She grabbed a small watch out of her pouch. "It´s a shame, really."

"What is? That it´s too late to fly to another lair and destroy the fifth kitchen in a row?"

One last time Drakken took a look at the remains of the lair.

"No, I mean with all the fun we had, we completely missed the weekly karaoke evening. The bar will be closed long before we could get there."

"Ah, blast! I forgot about that!" One of his eyebrows wandered up. "But that´s a strange thing for you to say, Shego. So far I have always been under the impression you were not really fond of the kara ... wait ... you didn´t start all that just because...?"

When he looked for her, he found her already standing next to the hovercraft, sending him a big wicked grin.

"SHEGO!"

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It has been a long time, since I wrote my last story, so this was a little test. Read and review, folks!

I´m not really satisfied with it (but I´d say that about every single one of my stories even if all people would tell me they´d like it, so that´s nothing unusal), so at some point I guess I´ll feel the need to rewrite the whole thing. But for the time being I guess it´s ok.


End file.
